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Landfill Copies of Atari's 'E.T.' End Up On eBay
Nerval's Lobster writes "In the early 1980s, Atari made what seemed like a slam-dunk bet: a game based on E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial, one of the most beloved (and highest-grossing) films of all time. The company was so sure it had a hit in the making, in fact, that it manufactured millions of E.T. game cartridges, which flooded store shelves just in time for holiday shopping in December 1982. The game sold well at the outset, but it didn't sell well enough: By early 1983, Atari still had 3.5 million unsold cartridges on its hands. Embarrassed by the failure, Atari dumped those cartridges into a city landfill in Alamogordo, New Mexico. In 2003, Canadian entertainment company Fuel Industries received permission from Alamogordo's town counsel to excavate the landfill for the long-lost cartridges. Now some of those cartridges have surfaced on eBay, selling for $50 and up; if you ever wanted to own a little slice of video-game history, now's your chance." (You might recall the news from earlier this year that some copies of E.T. had been found.)
Just to clarify things, the cartridges dumped at Alamogordo were returns from retail stores not excess inventory from Atari. Many of them still have store stickers on them. There were never millions of ET cartridges dumped at Alamogordo, they were a mix of titles (2600 and 5200) and not in the millions.
Bulldozer operator: What fitting end to your life's pursuits. You're about to become a permanent addition to this landfill. Who knows? In 30+ years, even you may be worth something.
ET: Ha ha ha ha.
[under his breath]
ET: -Flips the middle finger-; (the tip glows).
Life is not for the lazy.
1. Make bad game
2. Add landfill waste
3. Simmer on low heat for 30 years
4. ???
5. Excavate and sell to collectors (Profit!)
Take it to the limit, everybody to the limit, come on, everybody fhqwhgads.
I just love the classic Atari 2600 box art! I would love to buy an artbook of it - possibly posters and/or shirts as well.
Those are some of the worst pictures I have seen for ebay listings...
and never had an Atari. Commodore geek here!
I still have a copy that my dad bought me 30 years ago, and as of two years ago it still works fine. It's been used a fair bit, but I'm sure it is better condition than a copy that spent 30 years in a landfill. Are you sure there are people willing to spend $50 for a game with so many bugs (in this case, both programmatic and probably literal)? I'm willing to bet there are so many copies out there like mine, and so many people who hate the game, that nobody will be willing to spend more than $5.
PS: The gameplay and controls were just as bad as I remembered. Getting out of pits without falling back in was hard enough, but finding a way around the glitchy screen transition points was super frustrating.
A recursive sig
Can impart wisdom and truth
Call proc signature()
Even though these were fished out of landfill, I'm betting some lawyers will come up with some basis to sue people for this.
Retroactively, you don't get to sell what we dumped in the landfill, because we're not getting paid and it's our IP.
Mark my words.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
ET - the extra testicle.
I've been waiting to post that to the intertubez for thirty years!
WTF is with those "sponsored links" at the bottom? Apparently even the "disable ads" option doesn't remove them. Oh well, at least I can kill them with adblock.
How can we continue to believe in a just universe and freedom to eat crackers if we have no ale?
Strangely, there are lots of those now bidding in the $200+ range. I was going to post that there is no way they would
ever get their excavation costs back but I might be wrong. What are people buying these for? I also have a large box
of working atari games. You can buy large lots on ebay or at garage sales for next to nothing. Why the
premium? Is it just because of the history?
Way to reference an article on Dice.com
I still have my copy as well, but I haven't fired it up in a while (emulators!).
But those Atari 2600 carts were pretty robust.....just ask any of the ones that were flung across my room. I would bet that a cart wrapped in cardboard survived rather well.
The E.T. game was a lesson in the folly of games based on movies. Sadly, it's a lesson many companies still haven't learned. There are still executives in the game industry who think the road to success is to license a big-name movie or other franchise and then sell a game based on it. And the key phrase there is "sell a game", without much thought given to actually creating the game, or what is going to make the game fun to play.
What makes a game fun and engaging is, primarily, the gameplay mechanism. Movies are non-interactive and have no gameplay mechanisms. Therefore, they have little of value to offer to a licensed game. Yes, you can take a generic, well-proven game mechanic and slap on a movie-colored coat of paint, but it means nothing. It may possibly turn out to be an OK game, but there's no reason to expect it to surpass games that were designed as their own properties from the outset. The reverse is more often true: a game concept originated by a game designers is more likely to produce a truly fun game, as compared with a movie concept that some programmers have been ordered to "turn into some kind of game that we can sell this Christmas".
What are people buying these for? Is it just because of the history?
Yes.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
How many people even have a 2600 to play them any more? Or are people buying just to have it?
If you were going to use an emulator, you don't exactly need the cart.
And anyway, the gameplay is miserably bad...
I know right? I actually have 3 copies of it, 2 of which were thrown into those "buy this whole shoebox full of 2600 carts for $10, but you have to take them all" garage sale deals, and 1 of which is still in the original packaging (although not sealed).
What are people buying these for? Is it just because of the history?
Yes.
I still don't get it. So a company made a bad call and dumped inventory. In this case it
was to a landfill presumably so they wouldn't flood the market and bring down cartridge prices.
Also, from the looks of the titles, there were a lot of titles. My guess this is a pretty common
practice. Microsoft wants full shelves of their latest OS at best buy so they ship a bunch of
units, cost to them is basically nothing. The ones that don't sell get sent back and destroyed.
It would be against their best interest to sell them for pennies and dilute the market.
What is so special about atari doing it when everyone does it?
Why would anyone pay $1 much less $50 for a game that was known to be complete crap. The game didn't get any better in the last 30 years and they buried it the first time for a reason. Now that they've dug it up it doesn't even have the benefit of being relatively rare.
Atari has just published a new game based on the hit movie E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial!
It's been used a fair bit, but I'm sure it is better condition than a copy that spent 30 years in a landfill.
Why would you put yourself through that?
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
Why the premium? Is it just because of the history?
Because they are idiots who have more money than sense. The game was crap 30 years ago and I don't think time has improved it any. I'm old enough to remember when it was being sold the first time and have actually played this game. Anyone who buys this game is an imbecile and if you pay more than $1 for it you need to wear a helmet to protect your soft skull.
Those things were trash 30 years ago, that's why they ended up in a landfill. And guess what, they're still trash today.
I had this game as well and wish I would have kept it since people are paying so much for it apparently. When I first got it as a kid I literally played like maybe 30 seconds of it and just shut it off since it was so bad.
Fixing the worst video game ever: E.T. for Atari 2600
Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins
Why the premium? Is it just because of the history?
Hipsters buying it ironically to play while drinking their Pabst are driving up demand.
I bet a lot of high prices are for games that include original boxes and or instruction manuals. I picked up my 2600 with 80+ games for $75 about 10 years ago (box of games, no original boxes/manuals). Still works, but we no longer pull it out for parties.
Shoot, I even got ET with the set, but I recall the pain it caused me a long time ago and would never want to relive even a taste of that.
BlameBillCosby.com
Where the Apple Lisa's are buried. I've actually had the privilege of seeing one in the flesh in recent history.
It's a legendarily BAD game and a huge failure that was supposed to be a great success, which through an ironic twist ended up in a hole in the ground - which is what the gameplay of the game boils down to.
In short - it's famous.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Strangely, there are lots of those now bidding in the $200+ range. I was going to post that there is no way they would ever get their excavation costs back but I might be wrong. What are people buying these for? I also have a large box of working atari games. You can buy large lots on ebay or at garage sales for next to nothing. Why the premium? Is it just because of the history?
“Look at this. It’s worthless — ten dollars from a vendor in the street. But I take it, I bury it in the sand for a thousand years, it becomes priceless. Like the Ark.”
Didn't Apple or Sun Remarketing dump quite a few Apple Lisa computers into a Utah landfill?
They were quite functional but didn't sell well due to the extremely high price. They had things early Macs didn't like a hard drive and much more memory. They had full multitasking too. There was a simple conversion to allow running Mac apps.
Crystal Quest anyone??
That game (and video touch pad peripheral) were about 38 1982 US Dollars.
That's about $100 2014 Dollars after taxes.
Souse: http://www.digitpress.com/library/magazines/electronic_games/electronic_games_aug82.pdf
Nostalgia. It absolutely sells.
Jokes on them.... I still have my original copy!
www.slightlycrewed.com - Because aren't we all?
This one on ebay is currently at $605 with 7 days yet to go.
No one seems to know about this doc- I saw it at ComicCon SD.. its' one of the best films I saw this year and will be on XBox live on the 20th. Wish it had wider distribution.
Zak Penn directed.
Location of first nuclear test (well, close enough)... Dumping ground for unsold ET cartridges...
Coincidence? Maybe they were hoping someone would nuke the site from orbit (just to be sure, of course) to remove all possibility of recovery...
I may be tempted to buy a copy of the game now, just to play it and laugh at it's horribleness, but it wouldn't be at a premium, and it sure as hell wouldn't be a copy covered in garbage.
XDInd
Intelligent Television
Is it just because of the history?
More likely because of herd mentality
This is one of the dumbest things I ever read. If somebody really wants to spend 50 bucks for one of those cartridges let me know and you can have mine. it's never been in a landfill.